Washington, D.C. - This morning, the U.S. Department of Education
released the long-awaited results of the Fast Response Statistical
Survey’s (FRSS) Report on Arts Education, based on data gathered in the
2009-2010 school year. The arts education community – and the League in
particular – has long called for federal data collection to be more
comprehensive in scope and depth and that data be collected more
frequently. While the FRSS report does not provide a complete picture of
the status of arts education, it does provide some valuable new
information and an opportunity to provoke a public conversation about
arts education. A few key findings:

More than 90% of our nation’s public elementary and secondary schools
offer some form of music instruction. At the elementary level, that
includes a majority of students receiving music instruction at least
once a week by a certified art or music teacher. This is a strong
testament to effective advocacy for arts education programs across the
country during the onset of the recession and in the wake of reading and
math accountability demands on public schools.

Although music is widely available in some form, six percent of the
nation’s public elementary schools offer no specific instruction in
music, nine percent of public secondary schools reported that they did
not offer music, and only 15 percent of elementary schools offered music
instruction at least three times per week.

It is clear that there are critical equity gaps in student access to a
quality arts education in all arts disciplines. These gaps must be
addressed if students are to have access to a complete education. The
FRSS report shows that the percentage of schools offering music
education declines as the percentage of students eligible for free or
reduced-price lunch increases. In other words, schools with a higher concentration of students in poverty were less likely to offer music education.
Likewise, among elementary schools offering music education, the
presence of music specialists declines as the school’s poverty rate
increases. This is sobering news, just as a separate new report
from the National Endowment for the Arts underscores the significant
academic, workforce, and civic engagement gains associated with high
levels of arts exposure for youth of lower socioeconomic status.

The League has been working with its national partners to create a
toolkit to help orchestras and the broader arts community understand and
communicate about the Snapshot FRSS results and will make these tools
available online soon. In the meantime, find the full report online and view the League's music education advocacy tools to learn what kind of steps you can take at the local level to advance the status of arts education in public schools.